southern anthem
by vega-de-la-lyre
Summary: When Christine Chapel is nineteen years old, she runs away from home to serve as a nurse in the Confederate army. McCoy/Chapel, Civil War AU.


* * *

one.

* * *

When Christine Chapel is nineteen years old, she runs away from home to serve as a nurse in the Confederate army. It is embarrassingly easy to do so. When she was thirteen her father took her on a day trip by train to Newnan, to look at a horse; and she has always had a good head for navigation, has been mapping out routes on wellworn maps since she learned the four points of a compass. So she packs her things, takes her years of saved-up egg money and slips away in the morning before everyone else is up, and by the time anyone notices her missing, she is long gone. If they look for her here — and why would they? — well, there's a good handful of hospitals in this city to keep them occupied in looking for her, and the letters she sends home once a month to ease their minds are appropriately vague.

It is, she knows, entirely improper for her to be among the men; she is unmarried, and she is young and pretty, so nursing these men, seeing sights wholly unsuited for virginal young eyes — well, to call it scandalously unladylike would be entirely underestimating the situation. If her mother knew what she was doing, she would throw her hands up and say that Christine was ruined for marriage. It's futile for her to protest that she grew up on a farm, she has an abundance of brothers and has worked alongside them since she could walk, that she's hardly ignorant of the facts of life, and what's more, she has two hands, two competent hands that could be well put to use saving lives — no, it would do no good to say that.

So she tucks her fair curls away under starched caps and she calls herself Mrs Dixon, passes herself off as the widow of some young officer, and she hopes they won't ask why her hand is so conspicuously bare of a ring; if anyone does, she'll lower her eyes tragically and virtuously and tell them how she donated it to the cause.

Christine doesn't like the deceit. But nor does she like to be made useless, sitting at home with her aunts and her cousins, rolling bandages and knitting socks while her brothers and uncles are fighting and dying on muddy battlefields, in makeshift grimy field hospitals. She likes doing this, she likes knowing that she is making a tangible difference, and when the loneliness and homesickness swell up and threaten to choke her she sets her teeth and throws herself into her work.

It is a not entirely pleasant distraction, but a serviceable one.

* * *

As the week wears on, as the spring stickily turns itself into a throbbing hot summer, Christine finds that the sickly-sweet scent of ether, the low stench of rot and blood — they cling to her skirts and to her skin, they infect everything she owns. At night in her tiny rented rooms Christine scrubs at her nails desperately until her fingers are pink and raw, but then she lets her hair loose and a ghost-like whiff of death overwhelms her senses and it's all she can do to keep herself from vomiting.

Better here than at the hospital, she thinks; but her dreams are troubled all the same.

* * *

Now that she is so often lying to everyone around her, Christine finds herself becoming more accustomed to admitting uncomfortable truths to herself, and here is one that she would never breathe a word of to anyone else —

It's not just the work keeping her here, and it's certainly not the cause; she is apathetic towards politics at best. It's the medical officer she serves under, a particularly irascible surgeon who has her so arrested, so eager to do her best. Doctor McCoy is curt, he is cranky, he is more skilled and capable than anyone she's ever seen, he is already married, and he is almost overwhelmingly handsome, dark and powerful — not that, pious widow that she is, she should take notice of such things. It's true enough, though, she thinks to herself rebelliously; half the young women in the city swoon over him, invite him constantly to teas and benefits and dinners as their pet hero. She is almost delighted every time he turns them down and stalks through the hospital crossly, muttering audibly about "damn fluff-headed girls wasting his time with silly parties, ain't nothing pretty or conversational about death and disease."

It's not that he devotes his time to her instead of them; Christine doesn't know if he remembers her name from one minute to the next. But at the very least, he doesn't think her fluff-headed, and that, she thinks, is triumph enough.

It's a horribly hot day in July when she assists on one of his surgeries for the first time. It has been a bad week for fighting, and the hospital — already understaffed and undersupplied — has so many new patients, they're spilling out into the courtyard. She is hurrying down the ward with an armful of linens to make up a newly vacant bed, weaving her way through the chaos, when McCoy's hand on her arm stops her; he's leaning over a shaking, blood-soaked soldier whose left leg is a pulpy blackened mess.

"Nurse," he says, the weight of his fingers warm and hard through her sleeve. "Don't go anywhere, I need your help with this young man — "

Christine doesn't answer for a second; his thumb pressed into the hollow of her elbow sends a spike of pleasure through her body. "Yes, sir, of course," she says finally, guiltily pulling her mind back to the present as he pulls his fingers away to check the patient's pulse.

"What's your name, son?" McCoy asks, voice calmly level.

"D-Danny Watt, sir," the boy says; he is young, surely only fifteen or sixteen, and Christine's heart wrenches for him as she puts down the stack of sheets.

"There's nothing to be done for it, soldier, this bone's shattered," McCoy says; his face is grim and set, brow furrowed. "It'll have to come off now."

Christine would like very much to turn away at the sight of the grief and the terror written across young Watt's dirty, bloody features, but when he swallows hard and says to her bravely, teeth chattering, "Well, I'm game if you are, Nurse," what can she do but smile at him and try to look as reassuring as possible?

"Don't worry, Danny," she says, pushing back his hair, "you wouldn't want to be in anyone's hands but Doctor McCoy's here. You'll be fine."

Together they manage to get Watt out of his bed and onto the surgery table, and as she doses Watt with chloroform into unconsciousness, McCoy asks her, "Are you sure you're strong enough to hold him down?" Christine doesn't quite think so, but she nods to him, not wanting to shake his confidence in her. As far as she knows, she's the first woman to help with a surgery in this hospital; she doesn't pretend to herself that she was his first choice, all the men are occupied with other cases, but all the same — she fixes her hands on Watt's upper arms and braces herself across his chest, and when McCoy is certain she has a sturdy enough hold on him, he begins to saw.

Watt's body bucks and spasms beneath her; she grits her teeth and leans all of her weight into him until her feet are off the floor, and his blood seeps hot into the fabric of her skirts, sticky and wet against her skin. "You all right there, Mrs Dixon?" McCoy calls over the gruesome sound of steel on bone, and she doesn't answer, is too busy keeping her lips shut to stop the blood that sprays across her face from getting into her mouth. She looks up, though, and finds his dark eyes fixed on her; he nods to her appreciatively, and for a moment her hands tremble and she finds it very hard to remember that he is a married man.

* * *

two.

* * *

McCoy notices her watching him.

Which isn't something he has a problem with, because it's making her a better nurse; hell, it's making her a better doctor than half the butchers he's got working under him. He doesn't know why she does it, and he doesn't much care to find out, but he asks for her assistance more and more often not only because he's more than willing to further her understanding, if that's what she wants, but because she's quickly becoming the best pair of hands in his hospital.

Pretty hands, white hands, hands that are noticeably devoid of any wedding ring. When he thinks about it — and he doesn't often, really he doesn't, there's too much on his mind right now — it brings up a spark of fury, that someone as bright and lovely as Mrs Dixon was shackled to some inbred cousin or inferior country boy and, what's worse, lost him so young, spoiled untouchable goods in widow's weeds before her time. It's a curious thing. He wonders if nursing is some crusade of hers, some way to atone or to try and bring him back —

No, that she watches him isn't the problem. The problem is that now, he finds himself looking for her.

* * *

McCoy taps his hat against his leg restlessly, waiting to hear her footsteps on the stairs. Her landlady's parlour is a fusty, dingy place; there isn't a surface in the room that isn't affixed with some kind of crocheting or lace. A porcelain doll stares at him from a side-table, eyes enormous and unnatural. It makes him intensely ill-at-ease.

"Doctor!" she says as she comes in, closing the door over almost all the way; she looks flustered and slightly dishevelled, smoothing at the waist of her dress. He looks away. "What are you doing here? Sit down, please."

He does, because he doesn't know what else to do. She settles into the corner of the sofa opposite him, her breath fluttering visibly in her chest, waiting for him to start.

"I received," he said, "a pretty curious letter today. Seems the parents of one Christine Chapel have been tearing all around town looking for their little girl; they're out of their minds with concern, they think she might've been abducted, or killed, they're checking all the hospitals. Ours is the last on their list."

Mrs Dixon — Christine — stares at him; her mouth opens a little.

"You've got your parents worried out of their damned heads," he says quite seriously, "pardon my language, miss, but it's true. That's not fair to them."

Her face crumples a bit, her eyes bright. "I'm sorry," she says.

"It's not me you have to be sorry to," he says. "Tell me, honey. Why'd you do it?"

At that, her chin goes up, and her eyes flash. Good, he thinks, and puts the thought that she is positively beautiful when her spirit is up out of his mind. "You wouldn't understand," she says. "It's different for men. They want to run off and save their land, fine. They want to something reckless and foolhardy, people will buy them drinks for it and slap their backs. I don't give a good goddamn about this war, I don't think we're in the right, I don't think we should be fighting for this cause. But my friends and my family are dying fighting it, and I'm not allowed to help them — "

Her breath hitches.

McCoy's angry with her, sure, and he doesn't like being lied to one bit, but all the same — he does admire her, he does think she has more pluck than any woman he's ever met.

"Please don't say anything to them," Christine says, reaching for his hand quite unconsciously. He takes it, and marvels briefly at how tanned his skin is next to hers.

"It's not my secret to give away," he says, and the lines of tension leave her body suddenly, brow relaxing. "But I would strongly advise that you let your family know what you're doing, miss. Wouldn't they be proud to know?"

She laughs at that, short and sharp, her fingers twined in his squeezing reflexively. "Doctor," she says, "please. I ran away, I lied to them and to everyone else, I'm living by myself, I've seen things no proper young unmarried lady should see — at this point I'd be shocked if they didn't disown me outright."

He is acutely aware of how close he is to her, to her soft pink lips and trembling eyelashes. He can tell, too, that her mind is on the same path; her eyes are fixed on his mouth, and all he can think of is how easy it would be to kiss her right now.

* * *

  
It is three in the morning and McCoy's back is aching from a long day on his feet and in surgery; he's lost too many men today, his supper was thrown off by a bitter and accusing long-winded letter from his wife, he misses his little girl, and he is just damned tired with this hospital and everyone in it. He wants to be home with a glass of bourbon, not stuck here with piles of God-forsaken paperwork.

There is a light knock at his office door; McCoy looks up from sorting his mail to find Christine Chapel standing on the threshold, her bare blonde hair frizzing and curling wildly about her ears in the heat.

"You wanted the inventory finished by tomorrow, sir," she says, and holds out a sheaf of papers; she looks as tired as he feels, skin pale in the yellow lamplight, eyes shadowed. Her faded blue smock is stiff with drying rust-coloured blood.

"Well, thank you, ma'am, but I didn't intend for you to be here all night finishing it," he says, standing and coming forward to take the papers. This close to her, he can see a speckling of scarlet across one cheek.

She smiles and says, "I'd rather see it done well myself than badly or not at all by someone else."

McCoy grins at that. "Hah," he says. "I appreciate the sentiment."

"Well, I learned from the best, sir," she says drily, and picks up the battered tintype half-buried under a stack of papers on his desk. "Is this your little girl?"

"That's Joanna," he says, looking over her shoulder; Joanna looks very solemn and young and annoyed, all starched cotton and stiff lace and monochrome pout.

"She's so pretty," Christine says, almost dreamily, "she's got your jaw," and then she stops short, confused, when he curls his fingers about her chin.

"You have something," he says, "just there," and he brushes one thumb slowly along her cheekbone, smearing off the blood; he can hear her breath catch, pulse jumping in her throat, and her eyes are wide and startled, pupils huge.

He pulls his hand away abruptly, rubbing his fingers along his thumb.


End file.
